The rain had stopped by the time Adams walked up a street of abandoned vehicles that no longer reminded him of home.
Cars with doors thrown open dotted the road, and the bus that had crashed the front of a pharmacy had broken glass on the road.
People filtered through the streets in small groups, carrying their worldly possessions and whatever weapons they could find.
A man walked past with a kitchen knife tied to a stick.
No one laughed.
There simply had not been enough time since the last laugh for the joke to be remembered.
Adams walked beside Elena as Riven trailed a few paces behind, turning the strange core over in his hands.
Adams noted the way Riven had been strangely quiet for the last twenty minutes.
"You’ve been staring at that thing since we left."
"It’s not stopped bothering," Riven said, not looking up.
"It’s a rock."
"It’s not a rock!"
"It looks like one!"
"Sometimes," said Elena, looking up from where she’d been examining the ground, "it looks just a lot like your skull."
Adams chuckled, but his smile faded as the words left his mouth.
His body still felt strange.
It had not stopped feeling strange since yesterday when every movement had sent pain jolting through his bones and he’d been sure some of his ribs had punctured his lungs.
Before that, his body had been nothing but a growing mass.
The fights had been easy - killing monsters had been simple and his levels had only increased.
But when his heart had beaten in his ears, the pain had been unbearable, his muscles twitching uselessly.
He raised his left arm while walking.
Nothing.
A test, nothing.
He turned his shoulder.
Still nothing.
"You’re checking again." Elena chuckled.
"I’m just making sure it’s real."
"It is." Riven said, watching the man’s face.
"You sound very sure."
"I checked you three times."
Adams lowered his arm to his side, eyes still on Elena. "Fair."
Elena turned her gaze forward. "That changes everything."
"What does?" Riven asked, finally looking up at the other two.
"If leveling up really works by completely restoring the body then that means injuries and experience have some sort of relationship. Not just physical strength, but the whole body."
"It means healing and leveling are completely different processes," Riven mused.
"That’s what I think," said Elena.
Riven tucked the core away in his bag.
"It means we’re going to have an interesting medical field in about five years."
Elena looked up at the destroyed buildings around the group. "If there is a medical field in five years."
Nobody answered.
They walked on.
A little ways ahead the group came upon a school surrounded by overturned vehicles.
People had taken the building in as their own and the outside was littered with metal pipes, bottles of water, and people sorting through canned goods.
Nobody seemed particularly settled, but there was something different about this place.
It was not just a place of survival; it was a place of gathering.
A woman sat at a table writing down names in a notebook as another treated injuries.
Two men worked on bracing a door with metal rods and a group of children sat quietly in a corner while an elderly woman tried to keep them entertained with a deck of cards.
It was not organized in any way.
It was just people refusing to spend the night alone.
One of the younger men approached them. "You came from the eastern road?"
Adams nodded.
"Yeah."
"Did you see the military?"
"Only a couple of vehicles." Adams shrugged.
"Didn’t see where they went."
The young man took out a pen and wrote something down.
"What about the big one?"
Adams’ face changed.
"The monster?"
"You know which one I mean."
Riven and Elena exchanged a look with Adams.
Adams shook his head. "It’s alive."
A few of the people present stopped talking.
The young man looked at him. "You saw it?"
"Yesterday."
"What happened?" asked someone else.
"It left."
The man looked disappointed. "That’s it?"
Adams shrugged. "It didn’t exactly stop to introduce itself."
A few people chuckled, and it was the first time Adams had heard laughter in hours.
Then a woman sitting nearby spoke. "My brother saw it too."
Everyone fell silent.
She was in her thirties perhaps, with a bandage across her forehead.
"He said that it was heading towards the coast."
Someone else immediately disagreed. "No, my cousin said that it went north."
"Your cousin was three kilometers away."
"So? He couldn’t see anything."
Arguments broke out between people in the room.
Adams stepped back.
He did not know which story was the true one.
Neither did anyone else.
It was becoming routine.
Every piece of information was wrapped up in uncertainty.
Riven walked up to a table where a few broken weapons had been placed.
"What happened to these?" he asked, picking up a broken machete.
"Monsters," said a broad-shouldered man, looking up at him.
"Obviously." Riven picked up the broken edge of the weapon.
"Where did you get the metal?"
"Hardware store."
" Cheap steel."Can you fix it?"
Riven looked at him.
"I can try."
The man hesitated before handing him the machete.
Riven took out a small piece of monster bone from his bag.
Elena watched him. "You’re really going to experiment here?"
"I’m not experimenting."You’re holding a monster bone over a broken machete."That’s called advanced craftsmanship."
"You’ve never done this before."
"Details."
Adams laughed.
For the next few minutes Riven worked.
It was not elegant.
He heated up the broken edge of the machete over a small flame before adding the monster material and following the instructions that appeared in his Blacksmith class.
He did not know what the System was telling him, but he understood enough to make an attempt.
The first repair failed - the metal cracked - and the owner looked at him with disappointment in his eyes.
Riven stared at the blade. "Okay."
He rubbed his face. "That was educational."
The second attempt held.
Barely.
Riven struck the repaired edge against the floor.
It did not break, and the owner took it from him.
"It’s stronger," Riven said, looking at the blade.
So it was.
He smiled.
Not because he had solved anything.
Because now he had another question.
What else could he make?
Across the room, Elena was treating a woman whose leg had been crushed beneath a vehicle.
The injury was severe, and Elena put both her hands against the woman’s leg.
A soft glow emanated beneath her palms as the bones shifted and the torn tissue began to knit itself together.
But not completely.
Elena’s breathing became heavy, and the woman looked at her desperately. "Please."
"I’m trying."
The wound continued to close itself before stopping.
Elena pulled her hands away from the woman’s leg.
The woman was breathing, but her leg was still badly hurt.
"I can’t fix everything."
The woman’s eyes glistened with tears. "My daughter is waiting outside."
"I know."
"You can heal people."
"Yes."
"So heal me."
Elena swallowed. "I can’t."
The woman stared at her for several seconds before looking toward the woman’s daughter, who was standing outside the classroom door.
"I’m sorry."
The woman closed her eyes.
Later, Elena sat alone on the stairs.
Her hands were shaking.
Adams found her there.
He sat beside her.
"You did what you could."
"I know."
She looked at her hands.
"That doesn’t make it easier."
"No."
Elena leaned back against the wall.
"I hate that answer."
"So do I."
Neither spoke for a while.
Across the courtyard Riven was already surrounded by three people asking him to repair their weapons.
He looked exhausted.
Happy, but tired.
For the first time since Heavenfall began, they were seeing something besides destruction.
People were adapting.
Badly.
Slowly.
But they were adapting.
Adams looked out the school gates toward the ruined city.
Somewhere out there, soldiers were walking.
Doctors were treating survivors.
Awakened people were discovering their abilities.
Families were searching for one another.
Others were probably dying.
And somewhere beyond all of them, the creature from yesterday was still alive.
He did not know where it was.
He did not know what it wanted.
For now, he did not need to know.
A shout came from the far side of the school.
"Everyone inside!"
People rushed to the windows.
Adams stood.
A distant sound rolled across the city.
Not a roar.
Something deeper.
The windows began to tremble.
Then another sound.
This one much farther.
A huge explosion lit up the horizon.
No one spoke.
Riven slowly walked to the side of Adams. "What was that?"
Adams looked out toward the smoke. "I don’t know."
And for once, that was enough.
__
Far from the school, beyond the ruined districts, something huge moved through the remains of an industrial area.
Its body was wounded.
One of its arms was lower than the other, and dark blood was flowing from several cuts along its chest.
It stopped beside a collapsed building.
For several moments it remained completely still.
Then it reached into the rubble.
Its huge hand closed around something buried in the concrete.
A faint red glow escaped between its fingers.
The creature looked at it.
Its wounds began to pulse.
Not to heal, but to change.
The red light was drawn into the creature’s body.
Slowly it lifted its head.
Then it continued walking towards the coast.